Are RVs under electronic freeway surveillance?

Do you realize how many times your RV is scrutinized as you journey along to your next RV destination? Hidden in the pavement are sensors that report data to state highway departments. Thousands of sensors are located on roadways throughout the country. These sensors are attached to poles and overpasses and embedded in the pavement and include passive infrared, active infrared, passive magnetic, Doppler microwave, radar, passive acoustic and pulse ultrasonic not to mention photo and video. It’s a fact of life, modern travelers live in an era of increasing electronic surveillance. Most surveillance equipment gathers information like frequency of use, vehicle weight, traffic congestion and helps state and local transportation departments improve overall road quality.
Most of you have see these alien looking objects reaching over freeways across America but don’t have a clue what they are. I thought they were speed measuring devices and always checked to make sure I was legal when driving under them. I contacted Shelly Haney at the Indiana Department of Transportation and it turns out these devices are actually “PrePass” transponder readers. “These are deployed before our weigh stations as part of the PrePass program. There are 10 scale locations in Indiana, all of which have the PrePass equipment,” she said.

I was talking to members of the trucking industry while attending a commercial truck rodeo and discovered these “PrePass” transponders are saving truckers thousands of dollars each year. Trucking companies pay a monthly subscription fee which allows them to participate in the program. Each truck is then equipped with a transponder which sends a signal identifying the truck. There are weight reading sensors embedded in the road and when the truck passes by the “PrePass” transponder reads their ID and allows them to continue without having to waste time and fuel pulling into the weigh station. If they are overweight a signal tells them to turn off for inspection. It’s a good thing they don’t require RVs to do this otherwise there would be long lines of RVs at weigh stations. Keeping an eye on the spies - Jim Twamley, Professor of RVing